#destiny dissents

[flowers-of-io]

Why is nobody talking about how TFS is a story of redemption. I realised it yesterday; how we "destroy" the Witness not by feeding it enough bullets, but by giving the Dissenters the opportunity at penance and redemption. We don't even "redeem" them by our hand! It's their own choice, and we merely help them achieve this goal. We topple the Witness by beaming Light at it; by literally letting the Light in. TFS is a story about how there is never too late to turn back; how the door is always open, the option to change your mind is always on the table, there for you to take it; you can always, always, return to the Light. There is always forgiveness there for you. TWQ was revolutionary by presenting this idea with regards to the Hive (and Savathûn in particular), you know, the worst murderous race in the cosmos--but the Witness is so much worse. It is as close as it gets to the devil. It's THE evil-maker of the universe. And yet there was a part of it that wanted to change, that made the choice to repent, and *this* is what allowed us to finally triumph over it. I'm so insane about this. There is always always always always hope for you, no matter how far gone you think you are.

[hyakunana]

Iconoclasm

[thefirstknife]

Any thoughts on the fact that prior to The Final Shape all the veiled Darkness statues that we encountered were, um, female coded? Well endowed. Busty. Look they had tits is what I'm saying.

Previous to TFS my thought was either that The Darkness was presented as a female aspect - that old yin/yang thing (though The Light was never connected with the masculine to my recollection) or the Darkness was picking this form just to mess with us.

Now that we've been told they're exiled components of The Witness group mind I just have more questions. Were there simply more female Dissenters? Did the Witness send them specifically to us? (Mind you if they're veiled aliens and not human at all maybe those aren't breasts in the first place.)

Also, are they potentially still alive?

Yeah, there's been a lot of talk about this prior! Now that we know... Honestly? I definitely think this might just be what they look like. We may be projecting onto them (aka labelling them female because of their shape), but they're aliens; it's very possible that this is just a part of their biology that all of them share. Because all seem to have that silhouette even in cutscenes (though a little less exaggerated which is normal for statues; statues often emphasise things beyond what these things would normally look like):

The next one is particularly interesting because it's not just showing dissenters; it's showing all of them when they made the Witness. You can also tell that they're not all exact copies; they differ in height and weight, or at least it looks that way to me:

Some also appear to be... bustier? I genuinely think that this is just what they all look like. Alternatively, if we want to assume their biology is closer to ours, it's also possible they're made this way to imply they're a single-sex species. Common in scifi! This one is also cool:

The veils are a little translucent so they almost show a bit of the shape beneath? There's something uncanny about it in a way. Alien designs compel me.

We genuinely have not really seen what the Witness' species really looked like besides the upper portion of the head. And in this case we can see that the hand is humanoid (when it holds the shard). But what's beneath the veils? No clue. I think the inspiration for them definitely came from the veiled female statues we have, but we don't know what's going on beneath it all for a really ancient alien species. Really cool to think about though!

Not sure if it's possible that some of them might be alive. To destroy the Witness, they were fairly clear that they all have to be destroyed with it. However, there is at least one of them that never joined the creation of the Witness and has presumably survived, though it's unclear if they would still be alive today. Mentioned in the TFS CE and also in one of the pages of the raid lore book which is linked to the story from the TFS CE!

[torobatl]

mmmmm dissenter oc go brrrrrrrrr

[hiddency]

One of my favorite things about the reveal of the dissenter statues in The Final Shape is how it casts all the statues we've seen up to this point in a new light. The Lunar Pyramid, The Black Garden, Clarity Control, all once stood as imposing monoliths that heralded the arrival of The Witness, with their ominous whispering we naively assumed to be dark temptations by our enemy on the horizon. We now know them to be tragic figures cast out into a horrifying fate, forced to lead other towards an end goal that they spoke out against and were punished for. Their ominous whisperings actually being distressing warning and abject cries for help to save them from this cursed existence

Idk I just think Destiny is really good at long term story telling and set up/payoff

[makingqueerhistory]

Spooky Queer Books

Since spooky season is starting, I thought I would share a list of my favourite queer books that are great for this time of year.

Some of these links are affiliate links.

It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror

Joe Vallese

Horror movies hold a complicated space in the hearts of the queer community: historically misogynist, and often homo- and transphobic, the genre has also been inadvertently feminist and open to subversive readings. Common tropes--such as the circumspect and resilient "final girl," body possession, costumed villains, secret identities, and things that lurk in the closet--spark moments of eerie familiarity and affective connection. Still, viewers often remain tasked with reading themselves into beloved films, seeking out characters and set pieces that speak to, mirror, and parallel the unique ways queerness encounters the world.It Came from the Closet features twenty-five essays by writers speaking to this relationship, through connections both empowering and oppressive. From Carmen Maria Machado on Jennifer's Body, Jude Ellison S. Doyle on In My Skin, Addie Tsai on Dead Ringers, and many more, these conversations convey the rich reciprocity between queerness and horror.

Into the Drowning Deep

Mira Grant

The ocean is home to many myths, But some are deadly... Seven years ago the Atargatis set off on a voyage to the Mariana Trench to film a mockumentary bringing to life ancient sea creatures of legend. It was lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a tragedy. Now a new crew has been assembled. But this time they're not out to entertain. Some seek to validate their life's work. Some seek the greatest hunt of all. Some seek the truth. But for the ambitious young scientist Victoria Stewart this is a voyage to uncover the fate of the sister she lost. Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the waves. But the secrets of the deep come with a price.

The Devouring Gray

C. L. Herman

After her sister's death, seventeen-year-old Violet Saunders finds herself dragged to Four Paths, New York. Violet may be a newcomer, but she soon learns her mother isn't: They belong to one of the revered founding families of the town, where stone bells hang above every doorway and danger lurks in the depths of the woods. Justin Hawthorne's bloodline has protected Four Paths for generations from the Gray--a lifeless dimension that imprisons a brutal monster. After Justin fails to inherit his family's powers, his mother is determined to keep this humiliation a secret. But Justin can't let go of the future he was promised and the town he swore to protect. Ever since Harper Carlisle lost her hand to an accident that left her stranded in the Gray for days, she has vowed revenge on the person who abandoned her: Justin Hawthorne. There are ripples of dissent in Four Paths, and Harper seizes an opportunity to take down the Hawthornes and change her destiny--to what extent, even she doesn't yet know. The Gray is growing stronger every day, and its victims are piling up. When Violet accidentally unleashes the monster, all three must band together with the other Founders to unearth the dark truths behind their families' abilities...before the Gray devours them all.

Tell Me I'm Worthless

Alison Rumfitt

Three years ago, Alice spent one night in an abandoned house with her friends, Ila and Hannah. Since then, Alice's life has spiraled. She lives a haunted existence, selling videos of herself for money, going to parties she hates, drinking herself to sleep. Memories of that night torment Alice, but when Ila asks her to return to the House, to go past the KEEP OUT sign and over the sick earth where teenagers dare each other to venture, Alice knows she must go. Together, Alice and Ila must face the horrors that happened there, must pull themselves apart from the inside out, put their differences aside, and try to rescue Hannah, whom the House has chosen to make its own. Cutting, disruptive, and darkly funny, Tell Me I'm Worthless is a vital work of trans fiction that examines the devastating effects of trauma and how fascism makes us destroy ourselves and each other.

[thorough-witness-enjoyer]

The Witness and Why It (and its demise) Means Everything to Me (A POC Perspective)

Hey everyone!! The Final Shape has ruined me and has brought me to levels of not only grief, but hope, that I did not think possible, so I decided to give my thoughts on the different aspects of it that moved me to a place where I can be at peace with many things in my life and look forward to paving a better future!!! I think I’ll be making many posts pertaining to the Final Shape as a way to help me express my thoughts on how important this DLC was to me, but we will see!

Please note that these are just my loose, not fully structured thoughts and I’m yapping. My opinions are subject to change and I’d love to hear the input of others! We will be talking about subjects such as slavery, religion, black experiences, and personal experiences of mine!!! It’s very long too, so I’m sorry about that and any writing errors!!

Though I do not believe what I speak of was fully Bungie’s intentions when making the character, the implications and views you can take on the Witness do relate to what I will discuss.

I wanted to start off my return to tumblr with one of the many, many reasons why I have such a deep attachment to the Witness (Precursors and Dissenters will get a different post bc they mean the world to me too!!) , because truly, this entity owns my whole life. I think of it all the time, it lingers in my thoughts, my art, my writing, all of it. It has been so deeply intertwined with my enjoyment of Destiny since it appeared and has offered so much to my perception of the world. I do not think I will truly get over it and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t draw it every chance I get. It appears in every single thought of mine, it’s bad you guys.

I love the Witness so deeply because I have never harbored such a personal level of DISGUST for a character before. As much as I joke about it being silly and the love of my life, the very existence of the Witness revolts me to the core and the tragedies it has directly or indirectly caused squeeze my heart empty. This festering rot of an egregore SICKENS me as it is the beliefs that has robbed me and many others of family, culture, and livelihoods given form. My love for the Witness comes from how it instills in me such HATRED, and truly, we were far too kind to it in game.

For context, I am Caribbean American and have a tumultuous relationship with my heritage for many reasons, but it wasn’t until the Witness and its many victims that I felt like the religious imperialism that has affected my heritage was represented in a way that crept into my spirit.

My Caribbean mother always said to me that we are of this world, not in it. That the hearts of men are wicked and sin (cruelty) was embedded in existence itself. It is only when we give ourselves to a higher purpose that we will be free in the end from all suffering. To her, this life and everything in it did not truly matter for it was a temporary challenge to overcome in order to earn an eternity of salvation. A perfect paradise was awaiting us all if we just gave into the way and left everything else behind.

These were all convictions she held to her very core as she tried to shed away all other aspects of herself to give into this “truth”, especially her Caribbean culture.

She did not always believe this way, but to her, the island she came from did not truly matter at all. Those “wayward people” she grew up with were not worth anything and would die as nobodies on that nowhere island for their lives were not saved, even if they knew of the “truth”. In her adopted views, those people believed in false gods and practices (such as Vodou and beliefs that belonged to those taken from Africa and indigenous populations), they invited in frivolous wants of the flesh such as lust (with „improper“ attire and certain dances), and committed crimes that proved to her that they could never be anything more than what they already were (though she would be blinded to the fact that these behaviors are a result of hostile environments created by the systems established for slavery and racial subjugation). If she wanted to be fit for “walking the right path”, those people had to be left behind for they were lost causes who could not be saved unless they were delivered by the “respectable” ways of life. She had to discard her black mannerisms, hair, speech, and more to have a place amongst the truly chosen.

Religious imperialism has a long history of being heavily tied to discussions of race and colonialism as those who participated in subjugation believed themselves to be more enlightened than the people they brought devastation to, giving them an entitlement that drove them to force their way of viewing religion onto populations. After all, in their minds, they were doing the greatest good for they were setting the people they subjugated on a path for eternal paradise. There was no cost too high in this finite life for infinite salvation to colonizers and all efforts to convert populations who did not see this truth would be “necessary”. People would die or be forced into servitude in mass to support the ambitions of the “enlightened” ones, whole cultures and populations being scrubbed from the face of this Earth in an attempt to “heal what is sick”, to “break broken bones again to heal them right”. I think of all the generations lost to war, slavery, colonialism, and every other act done to deliver “purpose” onto others, all the people whose names will never be known because others used the breath needed to utter it on preaching of their own virtue, and I am left in ruin.

I think of how my mother speaks of those lost to destitute lives because of the social pillaging of the island as an unfortunate side effect of guiding them to the truth and I look at how her world view has been ruined.

My mother thought she was saving me by keeping me from my culture, my people, my family. I did not get to know the language, the customs, the land, but I did get to know how much my mother thought those were distractions. She spent my whole life trying to cement the truths given to her by the same people who left her island in such as state that she felt like she had to run from it, to ensure I would not grow into a person, but a vessel of the righteous message. After all, to be a person is to be complex, nuanced, and flawed and there was no room for that in the visions given to her. The complexities and human flaws that came with our culture would only distract us from giving our whole lives to freeing ourselves from the curse of existence.

The cruelty the Witness delivers with such gentleness as it razes civilizations, its unwavering belief that it is the objective truth and other perspectives are blind to this truth, the means it will use to get that “justified” end, its gut wrenching to me and all that has been lost throughout human history to ideologies that bear the same qualities. Its zealous, static nature that relies on circular reasoning keeps me up at night and makes me mourn what could have been if the unfamiliar and hard to understand parts of human expression were allowed to flourish instead of being eradicated for diverging from someone’s vision of what makes a life worth living. I see this big eyed vessel, incapable of growth and convinced of its own righteousness and my chest feels like it is going to cave in. I see its disciples and pawns in the faces of too many people I know and recall their stories in moments that remind me how poisonous what the Witness represents is.

The Witness is an evil that has hollowed out lives, homes, land, and futures, especially for those who come from heritages that have persevered against attempts to “rectify” them. I still grieve the empty life my mother lives and the people left to suffer the consequences of daring to create their own meaning. I look at the face of the Witness and think of the “burdens lifted off my mother’s shoulders” by those who thought themselves as witnesses of a truth that could not be contested with interpretations that could not be questioned. She prides herself on being a weapon wielded to correct the sinful hearts of men, but I just wish she prided herself on being a person because those who “delivered” her robbed people of color of personhood entirely.

The Witness is not a person, but the embodiment of these deeply rooted ideologies and concepts that affect so many. It’s horror, both in game and the parallels it has in reality, is far too grand and unfathomable for me to bear its weight on my soul and not agonize. Its very existence is monstrous, despite the understandable intentions that went into its making, and my stomach churns at the mere thought of it.

How many species in the Destiny universe will we never know about because their whole galaxy was used to get closer to the Final Shape? How many star systems were left barren because of the Witness’ ambitions? How many children, spouses, artists, philosophers, siblings, neighbors, and more, people who were something, became nothing because of eons of the Witness‘ justifications? Bile boils just thinking of it.

What the Witness represents has hung over my head my whole life and its perverse touch lingers on the whole Destiny universe, tracing many of the depraved atrocities in the game back to itself. It’s death in the Final Shape, at the hands of those it had turned into victims and left to deal with the repercussions of its influence united together, moved me in ways I do not think I could ever properly articulate. To see beloved characters I had given a decade of my life to come together from different backgrounds with different reasons to defeat such a heinous entity, I felt like I could do my part to bring others together, despite our struggles and differences, to rebuild what had been taken from us.

As a person of color from a group of people many still think are undeserving of life, seeing so many characters I have related to over the years say “I matter because I decided to and you can’t take that away from me” to an entity who thought itself so refined that it got to determine everyone’s worth strengthened my entire being. Existing as a person of color is bold in and of itself, but the defeat of the Witness at the hands of people who wanted to exist so bad they risked everything for it ignited in me a flame to be audacious. My existence and culture as a poc is unsightly and heretical, but TFS encouraged me to take on the prejudices of others by saying “Here, despite generations being molded into a “perfect” image and so many lives lost in the struggle to live personal truths, ergo sum. Ergo sum and there is nothing wrong with that”.

To me, the Witness’ death showed me that the stains left behind by social structures such as religious imperialism and colonialism can be overcome by people banding together to make the future different from the past. When we embrace the subjectivity of existence, we can create spaces for different views on life to flourish and reconnect with the nuances of this world. We can better the lives of our people, no matter who they are, not by abandoning all cultural practices and ways of life that were deemed meaningless, but by rebuilding our societies to allow for fulfilling lives and self efficacy for all.

My people no longer have to let imperial powers decide our fate for us or decide that we can be nothing other than the „nature of our race“ that they believe is inferior. Instead of looking up at others who asserted themselves as more enlightened for salvation, we can look at each other and realize there is no one truth to life, especially one worth all the devastation and cruelty placed against those who lived differently. The intricacies of life often lead people to belief systems that allow for comfort and understanding, alleviating the anxiety of possibly living an improper life that will forfeit a desirable afterlife. It is up to individuals to decide what makes their life fulfilling and what beliefs will guide their actions, for no one can make your fate but you.

My mother still likes to wear the patterns of the island and keeps paintings of island scenery in her room. She talks on the phone in patois when she doesn’t feel the pressure to be “proper”. She misses her mother because she used to make dishes from home. To relate it to Destiny, she still has the coordinates to her Lubrae in her pyramid despite convincing herself abandoning it all was for the best and there was nothing there worth keeping. I once thought reconnecting with our heritage alongside her would be a frivolous endeavor, but I hope that with time and understanding, the Witness may not have power over her anymore and she won’t look back on her disassociation with relief. Time and understanding will make our island grow and flourish, free to decide what it wants to be, not held back by preconceived notions of the worth of its existence.

Despite all the Witnesses in the world, I will persist on and try to acquaint myself with my culture without shame. The Witness is everything to me because I hope one day it desecrates nothing ever again. I hope the Witness becomes nothing at all and the cultures it has corrupted make themselves something audacious.

Thank you guys so much for reading!! I hope you guys don’t mind the vague language, I chose to spare some details for my own sake and to make the message more applicable!! I’d love to hear the takes of other people about this bc I love hearing people’s perspectives!! And always remember, no one makes your fate but you!!! Go be audacious!!!!

[mysterycitrus]

recently finished batgirl 2000 and i'm feeling Insane about her. do you have any opinions on the run? the character herself?

bro cass cain and batgirl 2000 are litchrally on my mind 24/7 and the more i think about her the more unhinged i become. how perfectly she mirrors bruce’s own internal struggle. her love for all things living. her desire to change. her disconnection from everyone in her life by speaking a language only her mother knows. her belief in the good. her absolute self-conviction and confidence to the detriment of her own life. the roses. wow wow wow

the more i read the more ive completely lost patience with comic fans who totally ignore or rebuke her as a character in comparison to bruce’s other kids. talking about the male robins with her noticeably absent is an immediate close tab. “she’s boring” “she’s underdeveloped” “she’s not as interesting” just tells me they’ve never actually read her run, or engaged with her character in good faith. her total exclusion from fan content about the waynes, her absence in fanfic, her reduction to a smiling, placid little girl who isn’t allowed a dissenting opinion. she has a single comic run from the early aughts that’s better than anything published this decade please be so incredibly serious!!!

she’s the most like bruce by any metric. dick understands bruce better than anyone, but cass is bruce, for both the good and bad. he sees her commitment to giving everyone a chance, sees her devotion to life, and is both awed and horrified. there’s a bit outta persephone that i still think about a lot:

Cassandra replies: “I was born into violence. Not to this life, but something worse. I was made to hurt people. I chose differently. I changed the path and found this. This new life, new purpose, new home.” She taps the symbol on her chest. “This, I wear to help people. To protect them. To start each day better, and brighter. The way I grew up… it was isolated, and lonely. I spoke a language no one else understood. There was no kindness because a weapon is to be used. Used to hurt, and cut, and kill. Who cares what a tool thinks?”

in my mind she is thee only choice for batman if bruce retires — for literally anyone else it’d just be character regression. dick would rather kill himself. the cowl would kill tim. jason needs to grow his own morals. damian works better as a narrative foil by attaining his own mantle, his own destiny. if nightwing is what batman could never be, then cass is what batman should be. she cares about the mantle, and has made it her own. she embodies all of bruce’s worst habits, but overcomes them. she is what gotham truly needs.

[andy-15-07]

Night Change

masterlist ! pairing: Coriolanus Snow x reader

SUMMARY : When two souls become one

GENRE: fluff, loveeee

The opulent ballroom glittered with crystal chandeliers and elaborate floral arrangements as Y/n descended the grand staircase, her ivory gown cascading around her like a waterfall of silk and lace. The room hushed in awe at the breathtaking sight before them. All eyes were on her as she made her way towards the altar, where Coriolanus Snow, the enigmatic and powerful leader of Panem, awaited.

Coriolanus stood at the front, dressed in a tailored suit that accentuated his authoritative presence. His steely gaze softened as he watched Y/n approach, captivated by her radiance. The air seemed to crackle with anticipation as they locked eyes, a silent promise passing between them.

The ceremony commenced with the officiant's words flowing through the air like a gentle melody. Y/n and Coriolanus exchanged vows, each word spoken with sincerity and love. As they slid the rings onto each other's fingers, a tangible connection formed, sealing their destinies together.

"I now pronounce you husband and wife," the officiant declared, and a wave of applause erupted from the gathered crowd. Y/n and Coriolanus shared a tender kiss, sealing the union they had both longed for.

The reception unfolded with opulence, the ballroom transformed into a dreamscape of music, laughter, and decadent cuisine. Y/n and Coriolanus moved gracefully through the throng of guests, their connection evident in the shared glances and subtle touches that passed between them.

Amid the festivities, Y/n found a moment to steal away with her new husband to a quiet balcony overlooking the city. The night air was cool against their skin as they gazed at the sprawling lights below.

"Coriolanus," Y/n began, her voice barely above a whisper, "I never imagined I'd find myself here, married to the most powerful man in Panem."

He turned to her, a small smile playing on his lips. "And I never thought I'd find someone who could challenge me, who could understand the complexities of this world we live in."

Y/n's eyes softened as she looked into his. "I love you, Coriolanus Snow, with all that I am."

He pulled her closer, his arms wrapping around her waist. "And I love you, Y/n, more than words could ever express. You are my equal, my partner in every sense."

The night continued with dancing and revelry, the couple moving effortlessly through the sea of well-wishers. Yet, amidst the celebration, a shadow of concern crossed Coriolanus's face.

"Y/n," he said, his voice low, "I know that my role in Panem has garnered its fair share of enemies. Are you prepared for the challenges that may come our way?"

She met his gaze, her eyes unwavering. "I am prepared for anything, Coriolanus. As long as we face it together."

He nodded, a mixture of gratitude and determination in his eyes. "Together, then."

The following days were a whirlwind of celebrations and newfound responsibilities. Y/n took on her role as the First Lady of Panem with grace and poise, standing by Coriolanus's side as they navigated the intricacies of political life.

Despite their united front, challenges did arise. Whispers of dissent and disapproval circulated among the Capitol elite, casting a shadow on their union. Y/n faced public scrutiny with resilience, standing firm beside her husband. Coriolanus, in turn, took decisive actions to quell the unrest, demonstrating to the Capitol that their leader's happiness was not to be trifled with.

One evening, as they strolled through the rose gardens of the Presidential Mansion, Y/n spoke softly to Coriolanus. "I never expected this life, but with you, I am willing to face whatever challenges come our way."

He took her hand, his thumb caressing her knuckles. "Y/n, you are my anchor, my source of strength. Together, we are unstoppable."

Their love story unfolded against the backdrop of political intrigue and societal expectations, a tale of two souls bound together in a world that sought to tear them apart. But through it all, Y/n and Coriolanus faced each obstacle with unwavering commitment, emerging stronger and more united than ever.

As they stood together on the balcony of the Presidential Mansion, gazing out at the Capitol skyline, they knew that their love was a force that transcended the boundaries of politics and power—a love that would endure, unyielding, against the tides of time.

[delicatebarness]

safe & sound | prologue

Summary: Bucky is given his new assignment.

Warning: Mob AU. Age Gap (Bucky - late 40s/Reader - early 20s). Dad's Best Friend. Mentions of Violence/Blood/Bones. Mentions of weapons.

Word Count: 423

Spotify Playlist

Masterlist | Next Chapter

A/N: I wanted to just get on with it and make a start. As always feedback is appreciated and highly encouraged :) thank you!!

Tags: Let me know if you want to be tagged.

In the city's heart, shadows danced in the alleyways and whispers carried weight, the weight of the Rogers dynasty. Steve Rogers, a man of authority, led his empire with a determination that brooked no dissent. His wife, Natasha Romanoff-Rogers stood by his side, an equal in every sense, and her presence was as chilling as a winter evening. 

Their legacy was filled with secrets, built upon the bones and blood of those who dared to oppose them—bounded by a fierce love that went beyond the chaos they masterminded. 

Then, there were the twins. Their children, you and Peter, bore the weight of your parents' legacy on your shoulders.

Peter was the elder twin, a reflection of your father’s determination. From a young age, your parents groomed him to inherit the family business. He was schooled in the art of manipulation and intimidation. 

You were the younger twin and the polar opposite of your brother. Where Peter had embraced the darkness of the family name, you sought out the light. Your innocence remained untarnished as you wandered through life with wonder and hope. 

Together, you were the heirs to the Rogers legacy, a legacy steeped in blood and betrayal.

Your paths diverged further as you grew older. Peter had immersed himself in your family’s business, an ambition driving him to climb the ranks of the underworld. One day, take over your father’s mantle.

On the other hand, you yearned for something more, something that went beyond the confines of your family’s gilded cage. 

As the Rogers legacy thrived, a whisper of a testament to the power, love, and loyalty lurked within. You and Peter stood at the edge of your destinies as a shadow of your father’s past loomed ever larger, threatening to consume the Rogers whole. 

It was in the wake of this ominous threat that your father, the patriarch of your family, made a decision that altered the course of your life forever. Concerned for your safety, he turned to his oldest friend, a man who was forged from the same steel as himself: Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. Known throughout the underground as “The Winter Soldier” but to you and Peter, he was “Uncle Bucky.” 

“Will you protect her, Buck?” Your father’s voice was grave as he asked for his friend's support, his eyes reflected a weight of the world that had settled upon his shoulders. 

Bucky’s gaze met his with a solemn node. “You don’t even have to ask, Steve.” And with their agreement, a new chapter in your life began.

---

Masterlist | Next Chapter

[jbk405]

I think I've found one of the key reasons why I prefer the old Expanded Universe to the current Star Wars content: Unique types of villains.

More specifically, people who weren't just Evil Force Users With Long Robes And Red Lightsabers. While there were always a few Darth Vader-clones that popped up to fill up space, so many of the Arc Villains were distinct not just in personality, but also how they were dangerous.

Grand Admiral Thrawn was a military tactician, which wasn't the point of any of the main villains in the Original Trilogy. Grand Moff Tarkin was a "Build a bigger superweapon and bludgeon the galaxy into submission" kind of villain, and Vader and the Emperor were mystical dark wizards. This isn't a complaint or criticism, but just pointing out that military tactics were never on display in the films since that wasn't the type of story they were telling. But Thrawn didn't have prophetic powers or Destiny, he had to analyze and plan around what he could learn about his adversaries. It's a different type of fight than Literal Magic. In the original Thrawn Trilogy, Captain Pellaeon frequently internally narrates how different Thrawn's style of leadership was to either Vader or the Emperor (Even if his art-analysis did verge on magic by itself).

Ysanne Isard was a political and/or espionage manipulator, which was even less a point of the Original Trilogy than military tactics were. She took advantage of the realities of actually needing to build a nation out of an underground military movement. With all of the dirty gutter politics, self-serving agendas, and logistics that doom so many revolutionary movements. I'm not as big a fan of her arc as I was when I was younger (I re-read the Rogue Squadron novels a few years ago and the writing quality is not as good as I remember, and Isard's plans frankly don't hold a lot of water), but the concept is still fantastic.

Warlord Zsinj on the surface seems like a merger of Thrawn and Isard -- he's a military commander who specializes in espionage -- but he also has a big focus that neither of them demonstrated: Business. While he still blows stuff up with his giant space ships and is sowing dissent through brainwashing and spycraft, he's simultaneously establishing a galaxy-wide network of completely-legitimate commercial businesses that he owns through untraceable pseudonyms. They fund his campaigns, give him influence on planets outside of his direct control, and allow him to control resources without any of his adversaries even being aware of it.

Even one-shot enemies like the Ssi-ruuk were so unique: They're invading the galaxy because their technology is powered by living souls and they want to harvest all life in the galaxy. That's messed up, and so distinct from the general "Take over the world" motivation of the Empire.

But as time went on, more and more of the enemies were just "Darth Vader Again". Another Jedi who fell to the Dark Side, or another long-lost schism of the Sith who rediscovered mainstream galactic society, or some other thing that is eventually resolved by a one-on-one lightsaber duel and a personal grudge against the Skywalker or Solo families. It definitely felt like they were out of ideas and kept running through the same villains over and over again.

This kicked into high gear after the Prequels came out, and continued in the new continuity after the EU was rebranded as "Legends".

I wish we could go back to the idea that there could be an enemy who wasn't super powerful in the force and consumed by Hatred Of The Jedi. With their own skills, their own methods, and something that makes them more than just another wannabe-Sauron. Pirates who are just pirates, marauding ex-Imperial Warlords who are just marauding ex-Imperial Warlords, and corrupt politicians who are just corrupt politicians, instead of revealing that Palpatine returned (somehow) all over again.

[mutual-vigilance]

The Traveller and the Tyrant

This is my honest review and critique of the Witness's characterisation. I would ask you to "enjoy", but, considering its themes and the fact that it is over 3,700 words long, perhaps a better phrase would be: "you have been warned."

When I loaded into Excision last week, I was immediately struck by the opening cutscene’s resemblance to the final, climactic battle of The Lord of the Rings, where the steadfast commander of humanity gave a rousing speech to his allied troops before bravely charging forward into the shambling mass of deformed, mutated enemy foot-soldiers, all under the shadow of a monolithic tower, the abode of the ultimate villain of the story. This was nearly enough to make me tune out, and, alas, what followed was not much better.

I have myriad complaints about the Witness’s portrayal in Destiny, and this cinematic is as good a place as any to begin. I do not think the introduction to Excision was fitting for the end of the Light and Darkness saga. Throughout the series, we have fought off a number of escalating threats, beginning with opportunistic Eliksni scavengers, and ending with a being that can end the universe itself. I do not think that a horde of Scorn ought to be the best this being can come up with for its final stand. I would have preferred to see it bend reality, drag us into the arm-tunnel shown in the trailer, shatter an allied warship on the spot, do anything, anything other than tread the worn war-paths of Sauron and his hundreds of imitators in various works of fantasy. First, because this is science fantasy after all, and second, because many of those themes are deeply rooted in xenophobia, unfitting for our current day and age.

The visual designs of the Witness itself and its precursors draw heavily from the historical and present cultures of southwest Asia and north Africa. Their monumental structures of stone evoke the architecture of the region. Their tetrahedral ships remind one of the Egyptian pyramids, and their murals, of the intricate paintings in buried tombs. They are said to hail from the sandy desert. The precursor aliens covered their heads and sometimes entire bodies in cloth; the concept art clearly contains sketches based on humans who dress this way, in burqas; and even the Witness is clad in a long, black robe that hides its lower face, showing only its dark, single brow and dark eyes. I could go on, but I believe I have said enough to back up my next statement: It was not a wise decision to base this particular sci-fi faction on the peoples of the Levant.

The Witness’s army of Scorn is portrayed as a savage horde, in stark contrast to humanity and our allies. The Scorn don’t even have guns. They have crossbows and torches, yet they are a deadly threat to our shining ships. We are told that our enemy is magnitudes more powerful than us, but we are shown that its troops hail from the Bronze Age. Why is the Witness not allowed to demonstrate its technological or paracausal superiority? We are told that it is made of many people, but it is single-minded, ruthless, and its cruelty is unmatched. In fact, its constituent minds are not even slaves; they literally do not have individuality until they dissent, and any dissent is, of course, summarily suppressed. These characteristics – the savagery or “backwardness”, the collectivism and despotism – are common Orientalist stereotypes. And to top it all off, the Witness is driven purely by religious fanaticism. Its robed, veiled selves are ontologically evil and irredeemable, except in death, naturally. I note that Savathûn gets a pass, decked out as she and her throne world are in Gothic imagery and ball gowns, and roll my eyes. And in the game, our characters speak of the Witness as a poison, a disease. A corrupter of all that is good. A foreign snake in our Traveller’s garden. There is concept art of that. Appalling. 

I have always known that Destiny is a game made by and for Americans, or the West in general. I was even recently reminded of this by the way that Bungie hiked up the price of The Final Shape expansion for many non-USD currencies, but I still held hope for a satisfactory conclusion. I was too optimistic. It appears that even in this modern tale, the tired tropes that have plagued genre fiction since genre fiction existed are inescapable. I saw the Witness’s multi-armed form (reminding me immediately of Guanyin and perhaps others of Shiva) coming from a long way off, and I still laughed when I first finished Iconoclasm. It was like finding myself situated in that old drawing depicting the Christian nations of Europe as a group of humans, arming themselves against the distant, threatening silhouette of... the Buddha. An image published in 1895. Maybe a being with a thousand arms is threatening, who knows, but I’ve seen too many sticks of incense burnt before her altar to be afraid or awed. Buddhist villains are rare in fiction, and there was some potential in contrasting the Witness’s concept of the world as made of suffering with similar ideas in Buddhism, but the resemblance, in the end, was used for superficial, visual shock value. Sigh.

So then I went ahead anyway, defending the City upon the Hill (ringed with spears) against Satan, via feats of marksmanship and acrobatics through five exciting encounters, riffling through a diary that I picked up in the Monolith to try and learn more about my enemy. If I knew my enemy, and knew myself, then I could potentially complete Salvation’s Edge in a reasonable time-frame! Or not. The raid took my team and me a month and a half. Probably because the lore left me more confused about my enemy than I was at the start.

We are told that the Witness comprised a multitude when it first entered the Traveller, since people were still actively being cut out of it shortly thereafter. And then, by the end of Excision, the game implies that the multitude is gone, and only a single consciousness remains, which we kill with little fanfare (when we could’ve used a 2-minute cutscene. In my completely unbiased opinion). 

Where did the many go? Did they all become dissenters? How? Why?

It is possible that, like the lower-case gardener described in page 2 of the raid's lorebook, all of the constituent minds grew frustrated with being unable to achieve perfection even with the Traveller’s Light, abandoned their original goal of imposing the Final Shape upon the universe, and were sealed off into statues one by one until only the last remained. But this would imply that we, the player, had little to do with the Witness’s downfall, that it imploded from its own loss of faith. Hardly a triumphant victory for us to brag about when we go home, and it comes with the “bonus” moral that mortals should not aspire to godhood because such attempts are doomed to failure. This explanation is too dull for me to accept.

The alternative, then, is that we did do something to cause the constituent minds to defect en masse. But I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what. Remember, we killed the dissenters to weaken the Witness. Why would committing murder make other people dissent, people that are one hundred percent committed to the Witness’s goal? I imagine myself as a sailor on a warship in the heat of battle, or a member of a raid-race team that has been awake for 47 hours straight. I see the enemy ship fire at me. I see the 48-hour deadline drawing closer and closer. What could possibly make me turn against my own crew, sabotage my own team? Yes, it could be because my captain has been yelling at me and I am completely fed up with them and I would rather die than suffer them for another minute, but that is also either a preexisting weakness that we merely exploit, or a stress fracture within the Witness that is caused by destroying everything and everyone it throws in our way, not by convincing these constituent minds that our philosophy and goals are better than theirs. Yes, this is the genre of game where shooting and slashing solves all problems, but come on. It could’ve been different.

On page 4 of The Rubicon, the raid’s lorebook, we learn of a previous occasion upon which the Witness was nearly defeated. Its adversary offered it peace, but the Witness struck it down. The dissenter narrating this story was not shocked into individuality by the betrayal, but by the fact that the thing they created to be literally single-minded in its pursuit of the Final Shape... is single-minded in its pursuit of the Final Shape? And then, more pertinently, the dissenter dismisses any notion that the Witness could be changed, and begs us little lights to not hesitate when we are the ones holding the knife to its throat.

This dissenter, while earnest, is wrong. The death of the adversary did change the Witness. It dislodged one mind from the collective, did it not?

So imagine, if you will. 

We encounter the dissenters. We listen to their story. They beg us to destroy them to weaken the Witness. They desired to be exonerated in death, to be redeemed, to be saved by us and the paracausal entity behind us. 

And we refuse.

We are given a blade, but we strike the statues with the hilt instead, cracking the stone. We pull their living flesh – made of what, we do not know, but it is living – from the rubble and we spirit them away to the camps we’ve made. We sit them by the fire and we protect them from retribution and, though these nocturnal beings do not see very well in the Light, the Witness sees, and it knows. It may seethe at how we escape its clutches time after time, it may sneer that we are making everything harder for ourselves, that we forget the ultimate goal is survival, but, through our selflessness and our seemingly endless capacity to forgive, we stir up hope within the multitude that what awaits them could be better than death, than even finality. They begin to remember the ancient enemies that once offered them mercy, and they are confronted by a new enemy who, for the first time, uniting Light and Darkness, has the power to defend such a truce. Slowly, they realise that they do not want to be our enemy. They are cast off. We save every person we can. And in the end, together with all our allies, we confront those vicious minds that remain.

But page number 4 shut that down, and all I’m left with is my fireteam member’s gripe that wow, this is just like how the United States deals with uppity foreign countries. It doesn’t really attempt to show that it is better, but prefers to fund dissident groups within the enemy state until it collapses, and everyone there is worse off. Which is harsh, but I can understand my friend’s position, since I have related gripes of my own. You see, the campaign forced me to protect the Traveller, the very model of a foreign interventionist, and I cannot overstate how much I resent that.

I started to become interested in Destiny’s lore after seeing some amazing fanart. Through copious amounts of research, I came to the conclusion that the Traveller is a downright bastard. If you haven’t read Shattered Suns, Rhulk’s backstory, you should. But below is a summary of what Rhulk said about his society as he sat on the Witness’s therapy couch, looking directly into the camera:

“Long ago, my planet, Lubrae, was inhabited by clans of hunter-gatherers. One day, the Traveller came and provided us with resources that helped us survive the dangerous flora and fauna of the forest where we lived. (It may have also genetically modified his people, if his ‘we evolved’ phrasing is to be taken at face value.) People were of two minds about how to continue after that. Some wanted to take advantage of these resources and settle down in a well-protected City. Others preferred to stay in the forest, and live like how they did before. As a result, they fought, and they were still fighting by the time I was born. I grew up watching the better-fed, better-armed City people murder members of my forest-dwelling clan on sight.”

His clan, Rhulk explained, was egalitarian, and relied on one another for safety. The Traveller’s uplifting of his species changed all of that. Lubraeans were able to manufacture Glaives and other tools to better protect themselves against the wildlife. The newly-introduced technology shifted their very conception of safety from the clan to the Glaive, from their fellow Lubraeans to objects that could be gathered into one City, be cordoned off, monopolised, hoarded, controlled. In that City, they invented oligarchy, soldiering as a profession, and the death penalty. They started to march troops into the forest, trying to rid it of its original inhabitants.

I have read books and reports on modern hunter-gatherer societies, and all of them conclude that first contact, if unavoidable, should be made with extreme caution. To quote the 2013 IWGIA report on indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact:

“[When we make initial contact,] what we are actually doing is forming the spearhead of a complex, cold and determined society that does not excuse adversaries with inferior technology. We are invading the lands they live on without being invited, without their agreement. We are introducing needs they have never had. We are destroying extremely rich social organisations. We are taking their peace and tranquillity away from them. We are launching them into a different, cruel and hard world. Often, we are leading them to their death.”

I do not like how the narrative of Destiny persistently exonerates the Traveller. At times, a character will rail vaguely against the “chaos” it causes, and the most frequent complaint we hear about it is that it left their species too soon. Rhulk was, to my knowledge, the only one to see the Traveller come to his world, distribute its technology among his people, dump a pile of societal problems into their laps as a result, saunter off without so much as a word, and subsequently come to the conclusion that Lubrae never needed the Traveller in the first place. And he was correct; it never did. I hope it is abundantly clear that if humans were to ever encounter an alien planet inhabited by hunter-gatherers who are themselves hunted by predators, our first course of action should not be to hand out shotguns left and right.

But what if we granted them different technology, such as high-yield crops? If human history is anything to go by, they would go on to invent chattel slavery. Agriculture increased the efficiency of food production, but humans, instead of distributing the labour evenly, have universally chosen to create an artificial underclass, and then force them to perform the majority of the labour. This was true in 2000 BC, and it remains true today. The fact of the matter is, societal issues can be much, much more difficult to solve than technological ones. The Traveller tripled human lifespan? So what? Humanity has already doubled it on our own, but we’re still struggling with concepts like “women deserve rights.”

Some might say that it does not matter, because those aliens would have invented all these things sooner or later, both the good and the bad; that the Traveller merely eased their transition into a prosperous future. To which I would respond: it does matter. They must be allowed to choose their fate. At the very least, they deserve an answer for why their prayers for safety and sustenance were answered in this ham-fisted manner. We are told that the Traveller wants to grant us freedom, but all it does is run roughshod over peoples’ right to self-determination. Look at what it did to the Witness’s homeworld. It terraformed an environment that sapient beings were already living in. Were the precursors not already adapted to the dry environment, physically and culturally? What is the purpose of making a forest sprout from the sand? Is it for the benefit of the nomads of the desert, or is it to reinforce the audience’s preconception of how utopia should look? Why does the game’s narrative re-iterate that the precursors ceaselessly sought answers from the Traveller, framing them as greedy, entitled, and unsatisfied with the “blessings” bestowed upon them? If I were a precursor, I would have questions too: what was wrong with the way I lived before? Why do you get to decide how I ought to live? Is walking away even an option at this point? Paradise is a prison when you cannot leave. Lubrae’s Wanderers tried, but they could not escape the new material conditions that the Light had imposed upon them.

Humans have had our share of prophets, many associated with millennia of internecine warfare. Now imagine if God, literal God, showed up in the desert one day, and stuck around until we achieved interstellar flight. The Traveller destroyed the precursors. We’re the unfortunate ones who have to deal with the consequences of its actions, if not its words. Destiny’s narrative insists that because the Traveller was silent, it is not responsible for what befell the precursors. That is untrue. Silent or not, the damage was done. The Traveller touched world after world, sending their peoples into crisis after crisis, and all the lore says on the subject is how much the Traveller cares about all of them. Truly. It can care all it likes, as long as it stops wielding the weapon of mass destruction strapped to its belly. Come here. Hand over the beam.

My opinion may sound extraordinary, but I assure you it is not. The following are some translated user comments, taken from the most-viewed version of the Witness origin cutscene from the Season of the Deep uploaded on Bilibili (video ID BV1Jm4y1t7cn):

“I feel that Traveller was messing around with the entire universe. In order to stop it, the Witness's people discovered the Veil and the Darkness, and tried to stop the Traveller from flooding everyone with its ‘kindness’. This caused the Traveller to embark on a foolish journey, drawing even more species into a cosmic war, just so it can continue to spread its so-called grace.”

“In summary: the Traveller tosses technology everywhere to all species, and then every species wants to expand their territory. It’s just setting fires everywhere.”

“I think the narrative may end up depicting the Traveller as a neutral power, or even close to a villain. After all, its existence has disrupted the fates of many species in the universe. No matter its original intentions, its unilateral interference is not a good thing. I don’t know how the plot will resolve; whether Light and Darkness will no longer continue to interfere in the universe, or whether the Darkness (Veil) will show its true face after the Witness is defeated…”

I am not cherry-picking. These are all highly-rated comments. You can go see for yourself. It’s fascinating that reactions like these are almost completely absent from the Anglophone fandom. I only reached my own opinion on the Traveller after extensive research, yet these fans on Bilibili took one look at that cutscene, and instinctively decided that our war is the Traveller’s fault. A vast Pacific lies between the writers of Destiny, and the messaging these players saw in its story. The game insists that the Traveller is innocent, that it always had good intentions; these fans say that intentions don’t matter when its actions have been the ruin of so many. Self-determination is more precious than any paradise a foreign saviour can grant.

On page 5 of The Rubicon, we see that the precursors learned well from their god. They began to journey among the stars, and render aid unto the other species they encountered. They did one better than the Traveller, in fact, as it appears that they actually bothered to ask those species beforehand why they may or may not desire aid, rather than park their ships in their skies and skip straight to the terraforming. Unfortunately, after too many refusals, the precursors decided to go to an even further extreme than their god. They would interfere in the life of every being in existence, all at once, forcing them to exist in an eternal, perfect moment. And unlike the Traveller, they would tell everyone exactly what was coming. The Final Shape.

Early on in the eponymous expansion, we discovered that the afterlife exists. Cayde-6 was perfectly aware and conscious after his death, suspended in a bright and comforting forever alongside his Ghost, Sundance. He enjoyed the experience, and disliked being resurrected yet again. This raises an incredible number of questions, but the thing that stood out to me the most was how familiar it sounded. How much it resembled what the Witness promised. For Zavala to be reunited with Hakim. For Crow to be reunited with Amanda. For Ikora to find peace in victory. And for us to…

I do not think the Witness was lying when it offered all of those things. It was not lying when it gave each of its disciples a different vision of its ultimate goal. Whether it was capable of carrying through is one thing, but whether it was honest is another, and I believe it was honest. Its Final Shape is a natural extension of what Guardians receive in death. Whereas Guardians are granted a peaceful eternity with their Ghost, the Witness would try to simultaneously grant every sapient creature an end in kind, tailored to their individual desires. That is not to say, I agree with its end. The Witness was a tyrant as much as the Traveller is a bastard, especially since it threatened to punish people for eternity, too, out of nothing but the pettiness in its bitter heart. Yes, I concur, I am a pawn of the light, but I will not suffer to be your pawn, either.

What I wanted to say after that, rebuking its offer to make me into a disciple, is: “I will join you, if you let me save you.”

[firefirefruit]

Steel in Her Veins, Chapter: Nine

Read On: AO3 | Table of Contents | Next Chapter

Characters: Fem!Reader x Roronoa Zoro

Chapter Nine: The Niece of Oden

The niece of Oden. That’s all you were to them. A female, no less. From the earliest whispers of instruction, the expectations were clear: sit gracefully, adorn yourself, and be the picture of delicate beauty.

While boys of Wano honed their skills with blades, you were relegated to the sidelines. They immersed themselves in the rigorous dance of training, bodies bathed in sweat, their knees buckling under the weight of relentless practice. The air carried the pungent aroma of dried mud and the metallic tang of spilled blood.

As nightfall draped the land in obsidian hues, you sought solace by the window, palms pressed against the cold glass. Your eyes traced the graceful arcs of the boys’ swords, their movements unfolding like a mesmerising dance. In those stolen moments, you yearned to understand the visceral satisfaction of exertion, the sensation of hard-earned sweat trickling down your face. You pondered whether your blood bore the same crimson hue as theirs, if your lungs could inhale the world as expansively as theirs did.

You never chose this life - to be related to Oden. Even now, beneath the flickering flames in the quiet of the night, with molten metal as your only companion, you entertain the notion of an alternate destiny. A life where another name might grant you the freedom to seamlessly slip into the revered mantle of a female samurai.

From an early age, your spirit rebelled against the stifling norms. While boys unleashed battle cries and practiced their swordplay on training dummies, your own voice echoed too loudly, your spirit too untamed for their liking. The chastisements rained down upon you, attempting to stifle the echoes of your free-spirited defiance. Yet, your determination, hard-headed and resolute, only strengthened with each admonishment.

The moment your desire to become a samurai slipped past your lips, the ancestral hall became a theatre of amusement. Laughter, like a gathering storm, rolled through the room, carrying with it the weight of generations of ingrained expectations.

As the echoes of their amusement reverberated off the solemn walls, the clan members, adorned in traditional Kozuki garb, revealed expressions ranging from amused condescension to incredulous disdain. It was as if the very foundations of propriety had been jostled by your audacious revelation.

Among the sea of scoffs and smirks, a voice jeered through the laughter, a biting remark that lingered in the air like a venomous serpent.

"Who's been letting her play with boys?"

The mockery, though veiled in jest, carried the unspoken assumption that the realm of samurai was a sacred domain, exclusive to the masculine.

A second dissenting voice chimed in, objecting with the weight of tradition.

"Not fitting for a Kozuki girl!"

"Maybe more etiquette lessons would be in order..." Another offered.

The proposal, wrapped in the guise of refinement, hinted at the need to redirect your ambitions toward the prescribed path of a demure Kozuki lady.

In the face of the anticipated derision that permeated the room, you stood resolute, a lone figure amidst a sea of mocking adults. Their condescending smirks and dismissive glances were met with a quiet certainty—a knowing glint in your eyes that betrayed a secret plan unfolding.

The impending act, the linchpin to reshape your destiny, unfolded with stolen glue in your possession. Each precious drop was meticulously squeezed into your cupped palms, and with deliberate intent, you coated both your hair and hands in the viscous substance.

The room held its breath as you slammed one hand and the cascade of glue-laden hair to the floor. Simultaneously, your other hand clung to your eyebrows, and your penetrating glare cut through the stunned silence.

"I yearn for more!" your voice echoed. "If my existence is confined to the spectacle of long hair and a pleasant smile, then I’m prepared to tear it all away! I am ready to sacrifice!"

The gravity of your proclamation hung in the air, a potent declaration of defiance that resonated through the room. The room held a palpable tension, like a gathering storm waiting to unleash its fury.

The glue clung to your hair and hands, a sticky emblem of rebellion against the predetermined fate assigned to you as the cousin of Oden's children.

As the silence hung in the air, broken only by the ticking of the clock, your eyes locked onto a familiar face—the former shogun seated behind the imposing Kozuki conference table. It was an unspoken agreement; a pact of silence from all in that room that spared you from immediate retribution.

His chair creaked as he rose, the wood protesting against the movement, and the room seemed to hold its breath as heavy footsteps approached your defiant form. Was it the glue that clouded your senses, or was it the fear that gripped your heart? The distinction blurred in the gravity of the moment.

With a deliberate grace, the former shogun knelt down, a glint of curiosity flickering in his eyes as he surveyed the empty glue tube. His thumb idly twirled across the cap, and a grin crept onto his weathered face.

"Nice move," he commented, the pride thick in his voice. "I was wondering when you were going to steal that.”

🂇

You wake up with a groan, feeling the slow passage of time like glue dripping, glue that resists to harden, at the tips of your fingers. Like glue…Glue…?

Your fingers gingerly touch your head, half-expecting to come in contact with a thick glaze of glue smeared over a crop of torn hair, but with a relieved sigh, you feel the soft brown strands that spill across instead.

Impassively, you stare at the ship���s ceiling. That dream…A smile curls widely on your lips as you remember. Dare you say, you’re still impressed with the younger you who was ready to risk it all – even her eyebrows.

“You’re awake.” Robin smiles, two cups of tea balancing in her fingers as she steps into the study.

Using your elbows, you push up from your makeshift bed, returning her smile as she silently offers you a steaming cup. The sight warms your heart, and you take the cup graciously.

"I bet I'm the last one to wake up, huh?" you muse, glancing at the hue of the afternoon sun. Its light orange tone indicates that it's still relatively early in the day. Robin laughs a little, shaking her head.

"No, actually. Everyone else is still knocked out, except for Zoro. I like to research, and Zoro, training…" she mentions, settling at the end of your bed.

“I’m sorry I had to stay over - I didn’t want to impose.”

Robin laughs. “Honestly, I’m surprised Luffy didn’t take this as a chance to sail away and keep you hostage.”

As you two curl on the bed, a brief moment of comfortable silence washes across the room. You look through the window again, passively staring at the lapping waves, lips firmly pursed.

What happened last night? You faintly remember drinking a lot, taking shots with Franky, eagerly involving yourself in a battle of cards with Robin…You remember Luffy who wrapped his arms around you, pulling you and Usopp to dance. And…and then…?

And then, what?

Suddenly, a fragment of a memory flashes into you like thunder. Your body tenses, your throat tightening.

And…Gramps’ face. Glancing across his shoulder every so often while some sort of darkness consumed his countenance. And when he would catch you looking – well, he’d just grin and stretch, turning himself away from you.

“Raya?” Robin lowers her book from her eyes, concern staining them. Her eyes flicker to your blanket, a slight sheet of frost twinkling across its cotton fabric.

Well, that’s embarrassing. That’s like the equivalent of pissing your pants.

"I’m just thinking," you quickly respond, forcing out a wobbly smile. Your desperate eyes pierce Robin’s; hers, naturally, narrow in reply. “Did my old man stay over?”

With a raised eyebrow, Robin fully sets her book down on her lap with a sense of alertness. “No, he went back when you went to sleep.”

Your gaze quickly shifts back to the window, trying to stifle down the dread that was now surging through you

Robin's usually composed expression transforms into one of genuine concern, her eyes narrowing with worry. When she finally speaks, her voice carries an unusual weight. "Is everything alright?"

You can't bear to stay in the study any longer. The weight of unspoken dread pushes you to rise abruptly, stumbling outside like an inmate escaping prison. The rhythmic clinking of weights fills the deck, an abrupt stop signalling Zoro's attention as you quickly descend the stairs.

Fumbling with your hair, you rush to the barrel of swords by the dock. Pulling one out, you sling the scabbard off from its steel with a sense of urgency. A muttered curse slips through your lips as you observe the blade, realising these are the non-valuables – I mean, who needs the real ones for a fucking play?

Your gaze narrows, glaring profoundly at the edge of the metal as if sheer willpower could reshape it into a more suitable weapon. The air thickens with tension, the clinking weights forgotten as Zoro's gruff voice breaks through the atmosphere.

"Where're you going?" His voice, a low growl, resonates behind you, the weights quickly set aside, wiping sweat from his brow with a swift motion.

Without turning to face him, you sheathe the sword with hurry; it's not the ideal choice for a fight, but it'll have to do. A sense of determination seeps into your movements, fuelled by your unknown anxiety of a potential situation. Your response to Zoro is abrupt, tinged with emergency.

"Home."

With that, you make a run for it. Desperation fuels your steps, sweat beads forming across your brow as you reach the peak of the hill. The gravity of your tone didn't escape Zoro's keen perception, of course not; the distant sounds from down by the dock tell you he's shot up from his spot, and the clink of three metal weapons against wood signifies his preparation to follow.

As you slip into the cracks, you hear heavy footsteps sliding and crunching against gravel, catching up to you. Zoro easily trails behind, his eye flickering with silent questions, your grave expression reflecting in his alert gaze.

“I don’t have time to bicker,” you say, your voice echoing against the sloping planes of the cave. You turn to give him a pointed look. “I’m not going to ask why you’re here. Just… stay alert.”

The cave's second opening looms ahead, and the darkness inside seems to swallow your form as you rush forward, leaving the open air behind. The tension hangs in the air like a storm on the horizon, threatening to unleash its fury.

As both you and Zoro reach the end of the cave – a small, serene opening beaming with the familiar field and rolling hills in view – there's one small detail that stains your relief, justifying your earlier inexplicable feeling of dread.

A colossal shadow, tangible and three-dimensional, yet feathered around its edges, looms over your home. The grass and flowers, once lively, now brush around its gasping form, wilting as if drained of life.

The shadow pivots, almost as if it senses your hitching breath. And you feel the blood rush out of you. A sense of terror grips you as you witness its form—a pure void, a silhouette of a body in shades of purple and black, bruised and glinting like polluted smoke in the air. No distinct features, no nose, no mouth, no fingers or feet…

Your heart hammers in your chest and a sense of fury tightens your grip around the hilt of your sword.

No eyebrows, no hair, no lashes or nails…

All but for one feature.

Large, unblinking, magenta eyeballs gaze at you.

They float in the places of where eyes should be, sure, but they’re…they’re just eyeballs.

Eyes amidst a shroud of all-consuming darkness.

[sheythebae]

"Help me!" "Zavala.. Please. Don't do this!"

-Dissenters & Ikora Rey, Destiny 2: The Final Shape

[morihaus]

Companion

In Tsae, there was the peace that came from infinite wisdom. In Boesha, there was the hunger that came from the ignorant void. In this duality, they were the best companions to each other.

Before her naming, Boesha was nothing but a thin, ugly layer of scum from the river's edge, washed to the bottom with thousands of identical kin. When the River's Daughter brought her revelation to the surface and gave these spirits a place to plant themselves and grow, taught them language to speak and alphabets to name themselves, Boesha made her name mean devotion, ambition, and passion, all feelings that stirred when she looked upon the face of her teacher.

Love blossomed in that dull gray valley where creation began because Boesha loved Tsae, she loved her words, her dream, her crescent moon smile on her face like the night sky. She was her most accomplished student, learning to create new words more quickly than any other of her followers. Boesha invented the sword to defend creation, and although she never succeeded in these battles with the scaled sons of Ka, she never ceased, and Tsae always nursed her wounds, telling her student: "pain and fear are better teachers than I." But this was lost on Boesha, who made war against pain and fear to disprove such a claim. When her fellow student Okii invented fealty, Boesha strove to outdo him and prove herself more devoted to her teacher. She climbed the tallest peaks of the valley to the gilded palace of heaven's emperor and snuck in as a handmaiden, wherein she learned the secrets of rhyme and meter and carried them back down the mountain to make poetry and song; she sung odes to the River's Daughter and honored her through art, through creation, despite her destructive nature. Tsae cherished this and came down upon her, flowing like the night, embracing her head to her breast where Boesha heard the undiluted thrum of Tsaescence for the very first time.

The previous 12 worlds were created by happenstance, the chaotic intermingling of Heaven and River, and jealously, to stay atop his throne in Heaven, Ka sent his prince and his brothers to consume these worlds, divesting power from all others than him. "No more," Tsae said, for the next world would be her Lantern, the flame that shall guide all spirits to the True Path to Mastery.

Discarded pieces of the 12-- sunken to the river's depths, carried out by powerful spirits there, even some from the trophy hall of Ka's palace-- were sewn together by Tsae and her followers. Myn, Zisa, Nyfa, and Ilni led their own vast retinues in a great concerted effort to create a world too great to consume and too powerful to defeat. To even try would destroy Alduin and his eaters, but Tsae wanted them to try. This was her cunning scheme: Ka would try and claim this world like all the rest, his scions would be moths to the flame of the lantern, irresistibly drawn to their ultimate doom. No spirit could escape this lantern they built. No matter how great, they would be all be trapped and they would all be burned. From their ashes, the pettiest of all spirits, the mortals, would rise to live, to know languages to speak and alphabets to name themselves, and to learn the road to a new heaven of their own making. It was their destiny, Tsae knew, to defeat the dragon and finally win freedom for all spirits great and small.

If Ka wanted to control this world, as he had controlled all previous, he would enter it, and then the greatest king of all spirits would finally know the bite of mortal flame.

But there were dissenters within the valley, even at the river's shore well-loved by its daughter.

Okii, rival student to Boesha, grew fearful and weak at the enormity of their task. His faith in Tsae wavered and he sought a simpler road to immortality: he threw himself to the feet of the scaled emperor Ka and pleaded to be made one of his sons. The path of Tsaescence was long and harsh with no guarantee of reward for all who sacrificed themselves, while the shameful road of subservience only demanded one's pride in exchange. Okii was too quick to renounce his Teacher and tell Ka of her plot to be renamed as his son.

The Lantern had almost worked as planned. Gods, devils, and all other inscrutable names flocked to it as they would to any other world, unknowing of its true purpose to uplift the meek; even Alduin and his brothers had fanned out from Aka-Moot to spread their dominion over this world. But as Tsae and her four cardinal students continued their work, Ka exposed the trick as secreted to him by Okii and turned his armies against Tsae and hers. Boesha was her general, for Tsae's nature was creation-through-limitation and though she wove pain and fear into her world, she could not take up arms in her own name. But Boesha, second part of her, has fought and warred in her name since the beginning.

The war was glorious and brave, but its end was inevitable. Ka's dragons and allied spirits were too many and too strong, so many of Tsae's students had given themselves up to become the world and could no longer resist the dragon's tongue.

Tsae never stopped her work, her compassion for her followers and her descendants was so great that she meditated and prayed for them while her warriors battled furiously. On one occasion, she received a visitor. It was Okii, who she recognized as her student, even now that he had accepted the serpent's foul mark. Okii betrayed his Teacher a second time by stealing her away to her execution grounds. As Boesha fought in defense of Tsae, first part of her, she had no way of knowing the darkness that transpired in Ka's earthly palace, where the spirits of Heaven gathered to exact their revenge.

The armies of Tsae thought themselves victorious when Ka's dragons retreated, but all too late they realized why. Devoted Boesha made haste to find her Teacher, blazing ahead of her warriors, but even she could not make it in time.

In a circle of jealous and fearful gods, Tsae's body lay headless on the floor.

Boesha's wailing made the whole of the lantern flicker. She dove to her knees to embrace her Teacher's body, pressing her head to her breast and weeping tears as black as the river as the thrum of Tsaescence beat in hear ear. But this was all that could be heard. Tsae had no more mouth to speak, no more lips to smile, not even the eyes to weep with her at this final farewell.

Ka had sent Alduin to carry her head as a standard throughout creation and strike fear into mortals, sending them cowering before the might of their betters. Now, Ka demanded Okii destroy Boesha and put an end to Tsae's movement.

Tear-stricken, Boesha knew Okii's face even covered in scales. She immediately realized his betrayal and fell upon him like a storm of howling blades.

Their battle fell from Ka's palace to the empty battlefields below, where Boesha sank her teeth into Okii's flesh. His dragon blood burned through her, she continued to devour him until there was nothing left of the power he spurned his teachings for, and his heavenly splendor was sullied and made dull gray once more. Through this action, she proved that Tsae's people could take that very godly power he coveted so by way of their own strength, and that he had undone himself for nothing. Unworthy of even his name, Boesha ate this as well, leaving him a pile of refuse blowing in the wind.

Like Okii, Ka undid himself and his children by sending his pawn to clash with Boesha, for her hunger was always destined to swallow and steal the power of dragons. Forever more, she would carry it to mortals, imbuing them with the might to raise great armies against Ka's children and avenge her Teacher, her Lover, and her best Companion.

[classicanalyzer]

Final Fantasy XVI - The Rising Tide Thoughts and Reflection

"Come follow me! Come follow me! Follow your destiny!" Awakening trailer and the last of Cascade's lyrics

It is now summer, and it's only fitting to finally talk about a story around the Eikon of Water thought to be lost from Valisthea.

This final DLC takes us to the land of Mysidia, the last bastion of the Motes of Water, the tribe of Leviathan, and of the Northern Territories' former glory. The Glamour, a region-wide spell by Dusk Crystals, keeps the skies blue and keeps the tribe safe from the Imperials who want them to relinquish their religion or face death as "heretics". Clive, Joshua, Jill, and Torgal are invited by the Tributary Shula to save Waljas, the baby Dominant of Leviathan, from his ice prison. To right the wrongs of Waljas' ancestors, Clive must free Waljas and face the wrath of Leviathan the Lost to prevent the child's anger from consigning a repentant community to the seas.

Mysidia is a remnant of the Northern Territory beauty long lost to the Blight. The Motes of Water also serve as the last remnant of the people of Ash after they lost their Mothercrystal in Southern Ash. It's also really refreshing to see non-Primogenesis skies which allows you to fully absorb and admire the beauty of Mysidia. The environments truly are an embodiment of the seas (which is also a notable sight) despite Mysidia being far from the Motes of Waters' original homeland. Also present are the abandoned remnants of the Northern Territories' temples, structures, and culture such things Jill is reminded of and comments on what once was here.

In many ways, the Motes of Water serve as what could've been and can be for Valisthea, similar to the Hideaway, a world where Bearers and non-Bearers can live alongside equally. Mysidia also serves as a relic of a world untouched by the Blight. However, by the actions of their ancestors (there were many dissenting voices but it was the Waljas' father that drowned them out), they committed the ultimate sin of all...they attempted to exploit the powers of their Dominant who was a baby. They wanted to use the baby as the heart of their attempt to create a Mothercrystal, much like the Fallen's Mothercrystal. When the rightfully angry Eikon emerged, the ancestors froze Leviathan in time (Also creating the Surge, a massive frozen tidal wave), which means Waljas is forever trapped. It suddenly puts this entire community as one built on that ultimate sin making it frustrating to witness. On their part, the current generation realizes this horrific sin and wants to find some way to free Waljas to make this right.

Despite the Empire of Sanbreque's fall, their legacy continues to be felt in Mysidia. A forbidden love between a villager of Mysidia and a citizen of Sanbreque occurs, an old victim of Sanbreque wants revenge, and the community is still afraid of what would happen if the Glamour is undone.

Shula, the strong, dutiful Tributary of Mysidia, is our guest companion in this DLC. Shula is also a Bearer with no mark which makes it heartwarming to see how Bearers are treated as equals among the Motes of Water. You feel her desire to right the wrongs and sins of her ancestors to save Waljas, who is a part of the same bloodline as hers. She's a formidable fighter and a responsible leader in her community as she also struggles with how to best lead the Motes of Water with the world changing figuratively and literally.

Our final dungeon is the Aire of Hours, the ancient Northern Temple now abandoned to the Tonberries (who return in this DLC as native Beastmen of the Northern Territories, pure evil but adorable goobers) who stake it for themselves alongside other creatures. The mysterious spell created a bubble that froze time who was around the spell when it was cast, the Timeless Stones. It truly is an awe-striking location that sells on the beauty of Northern Territories' architecture.

"The temple that time forgot." Shula

The "Witch of the North" is revealed to be Ysay (who looks like Jill), the previous Dominant of Shiva. Her story furthers the narrative of the abuse of Dominants and the cycle continues. The Northern thegns wanted to use her powers to preserve their Mothercrystal eternally and once she failed to get the spell in on time, they exiled her. It again proves Cid's point about how Dominants are used and discarded if their value runs out. This also serves as a parallel to Ysay's descendent, Jill, when Jill was used as a slave by the Iron Kingdom and expected to be discarded if she couldn't be useful. The Motes of Water however gave her kindness in her final days that her own people didn't give her, and for that, she gave them the spell she labored so hard to save her own people. The Timekeeper guardian guarding her spell is later revealed to be Ysay's assigned knight who reunited with his lady as the Guardian of the spell and in death. Ysay's Knight must've been really good at his job since I had to use up all of my potions during the fight. May the two find a more peaceful life than the one they lived.

Just when it seems like Waljas will be freed without Leviathan awakening…a certain God shows up and fittingly in the same manner when Clive first took Garuda’s powers (black and white palette of "stopping time"). We hear one of the most chilling versions of his theme.

“Free once more. Leviathan. Our most profaned fragment. Its divinity defiled by the hand of man. Its spirit shackled by his hubris. Till Mythos came, bringing release. Now……let the sins of man be redeemed……by the hand of the servant of God.” Ultima

Clive knew immediately what the hell was going to happen (Ultima used similar methods to drive himself, Hugo, and Dion insane). As Waljas once again turns into Leviathan, the entirety of Mysidia is under threat of submerging in its waters. However, unlike last time, there's another Dominant here to calm the Dominant of Water.

"As for the rest... The rest Ifrit will handle." Clive Rosefield

"After eighty years of imprisonment, I'd be angry too. But I can't let it end like this, Waljas." Clive Rosefield

Leviathan's (the largest Eikon aside from Titan in its Titan Lost form) fight is awe-striking and mesmerizing like all Eikon fights as we move from a massive waterspout to the bright blue sky of oceans. Just like Leviathan's Eikon abilities, Leviathan relies more on long-ranged water attacks with few physical attacks. The devs did not lie that this would be the hardest Eikon fight with Leviathan hitting like a tsunami (quite literally a lot lol), especially the third phase with Leviathan's shield. It took me possibly 30 minutes to defeat Leviathan's third phase. Clive even mused that Gardua would be proud in its final phase when it summoned a massive waterspout. When Leviathan tries to do the one-shot Tsunami from the third phase, Clive has none of it by burning the tsunami away. The fight ends with one last (and our final) Hellfire from Ifrit as Leviathan tries to use a concentrated frontal shield...but fails to account for Ifrit taking advantage of a blind spot. With a smaller Hellfire breaking Leviathan's concentration, the larger Hellfire hits Leviathan as the fight ends with the familiar last music notes we heard in the first trailer.

"You've had your fun, Leviathan. It's time you went back to sleep!" Clive Rosefield

"Leviathan Tamed" Victory Text

The theme of Leviathan, Cascade (the possible lyrics are from other interpretations we will not know the full lyrics until the official CD is out), gets a calm and peaceful variant in Haven, appropriately called Safe Haven, with acoustics and flutes mixed in. As we explore Mysidia, an even more relaxed and soothing variant of Cascade plays, Writ in Water. When we approach Waljas and the Aire of Hours, a dramatic and tragic variant of Cascade plays, Bide Time Return, which also serves as the battle variant of Writ in Water. Another variant also plays inside The Timeless Stones which shares some similarities to Heavensbound - Reverie. This time it's a more soothing electronic, synth, and haunting music as Clive and his allies approach the spell that froze both the Surge and Waljas. A theme similar to the Timeless Stones track plays as Clive approaches Leviathan in Cape Nepto, having a more electronic introduction and even more foreboding of the fight to come.

Now onto the actual theme itself, Cascade is the last major theme Soken made for FF16...but it was also the first music he made for the game. It first debuted in the Awakening trailer (the FF16 teaser trailer) and was supposed to be just a trailer-only track. Until the official CD releases, we won't know the full names of the first two phases of the fight. The intense, fast-paced music reflects the raging tides of Leviathan. The first phase is a chaotic remix of Cascade as Ifrit is transported to a seemingly another plane of existence (it turns out to be still in Myidia's waters but it felt like another plane of existence) inhabited by the seas themselves. The second phase is a remix of FF14's Leviathan theme (Through the Maelstrom) and it sounds just as epic as in FF14. The second phase of music splashes an urgent vibe. The third phase is Cascade itself, a fully expanded music theme of the trailer original track in Awakening. It's a grand, God-like theme which emphasizes the presence of Leviathan. There's a small intermission where soft music plays in an almost tragic and longing tone and vibe reflecting the child, the Dominant of this scared, angry beast. Cascade ends with the familiar notes at the end of the trailer and the iconic three sentences (shown in the first quote above the first image) with Prelude ending Soken's final dominant theme.

"War's upon us, oh guide us, until the fall,

From beneath a storm cloud that's inescapable (Not sure about this)

When we leave home, a blessing, to see us through the night

Revelation, your light shines through (or forth?)

(The first stanza repeats itself)

Come follow me, Come follow me, Follow your destiny!" One's interpretation of Cascade's lyrics (I'm not sure if this is correct myself)

As the battle concludes, we finally see Waljas, a crying baby longing for comfort. It's a heartwarming scene to see Waljas finally get to be with people who care about his well-being rather than what he can bring as the Dominant of Leviathan. It's much-needed light in an otherwise dark world and a history as dark and messed up as the Motes of Water's sin. Now all that is needed is for Clive to destroy Ultima to truly make Valisthea free and prevent situations like Leviathan the Lost's fate from happening again.

"Now...Now, we make things right." Shula

"How?" Jill Warrick

"By providing Waljas what he was denied. A place to learn and grow. A family to love and protect him. So that one day, when the wounds in his heart and mind have finally healed...he might decide for himself how he'd like to live the rest of his life. But until then, I'll stay by his side, come what may." Shula

"Then he's a lucky boy. And not only because he'll have the best warrior this side of the Belt to teach him the battleaxe." Clive Rosefield

"She'll do her best." Shula

A continuing theme I was right from the Echoes of the Fallen post is the connection between the Mothercrystals. The Motes of Water tried to emulate the Fallen's ambitions of a man-made Mothercrystal. In doing so, they committed the ultimate sin. Funny enough, Famiel and his two followers are a part of the same tribe with Famiel being Shula's younger brother.

Overall, the DLC is an amazing final addition to the FF16's universe. I also intend to make a retrospective series of the entire FF16 game with this and the EotF post as a preview of the style of those posts. Now Square Enix gives us a Cid prequel spin-off you cowards.

Rite of Immersion:

"Like the rain that falls on the mountains tall, are we born." Famiel

"Like the river that flows through the valleys below, do we live." Shula

"Like the boundless sea where the currents run free, do we die. And to the clouds then rise again." Clive Rosefield

"The circle of water is the circle of life. And today, from the heavens falls rain anew. This child, Waljas, now joins our stream, and he shall flow with us...from the mountains to the sea." Shula